Good is Enough

Tuesday, October 3, 2023 - 11:55 AM

I don't have to be the best. I can just be good. That's enough. That's okay. I've always been so concerned with being the best, or becoming the best. Not in competing, since I've always seen that as a waste of energy I should instead spend on perfecting my craft, but feeling the internal expectation of greatness. In assuming that I Must Be Of The Best, and that falling short of that level was a failure on my part.

But it's okay to just be good at something. It's okay if being the best at it you can be isn't upper tier in the industry, or whatever other parameter arbitrarily chosen to measure against. It's okay. Yes, I'll have more resources to grow my skills by just focusing on growing my skills, and not concerning myself with measuring it against the arbitrary standards I have been--of looking at the way a piece is rendered and knowing I cannot do that, or crafting storyboards as well as I can manage and not being able to execute a more than a, to my eyes, basic sequence. I don't need to become a competition level rider, or trainer, or teacher. It's okay that I'm good at getting beginner students started and that my primary concern as a teacher has been to make them comfortable so that they can keep trying.

I don't have to be the best. It's enough to just be okay.